An-Nahar, Lebanon, October 17
The major event that the region witnessed with the end of the Gaza War and the convening of the Sharm El Sheikh Peace Summit under the auspices and attendance of US President Donald Trump confirmed that the Middle East has irreversibly moved from the realities that existed before the Al-Aqsa Flood campaign and the beginning of the Gaza War to a new era forged by iron and fire over two consecutive years.
Beyond Gaza, the Middle East now faces what could be called Iran’s “Regional Autumn.” The end of the Gaza War and the Sharm El Sheikh Summit emphasized that the region has entered an entirely new phase, one shaped by shifting alliances, diminished powers, and the exhaustion of old ideologies. The Middle East today bears little resemblance to what it was before Hamas launched its deadly October 7, 2023 assault that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and triggered the most ferocious and devastating conflict the region has seen since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Perhaps the most consequential geopolitical development to emerge from this tumultuous period is the sharp decline in Iran’s influence—once one of the region’s most formidable powers over the past four decades. The Islamic Republic now finds itself gravely weakened on every front, emerging from this prolonged confrontation with deep and visible wounds.
Since its founding in 1979, the regime has never appeared so vulnerable, standing at a crossroads that many international observers see as the potential beginning of the end for Iran’s ruling system as it has existed in recent years. The prestige of the regime and its highest leadership, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is eroding rapidly. In the months since the 12-day war between Iran and Israel last June, analysts have noted the regime’s growing fragility, compounded by significant geopolitical losses across multiple arenas—from Syria and Lebanon to Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq.
The so-called “unity of arenas” strategy, once overseen by former Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, has collapsed along with the “Iranian corridor” that once linked Tehran to Lebanon and Gaza through Iraq and Syria. That corridor has crumbled in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza and is increasingly unstable in Iraq. Meanwhile, the official propaganda emanating from Tehran continues to flood cyberspace with hollow anthems of victory, masking a starkly diminished reality. The Iran of today is but a shadow of the confident, defiant Tehran of previous years—its image reversed by a cascade of strategic defeats.
Taken together, these developments echo the assessment made by Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who recently published a striking 8,000-word essay in Foreign Affairs titled “The Autumn of the Ayatollahs.” In it, he argues that for the first time in nearly four decades, Iran is on the cusp of a change in leadership, and perhaps even the regime itself.
As Khamenei’s rule nears its end, Sadjadpour writes, the 12-day war with Israel laid bare the fragility of the system he built. Israel’s bombing of Iranian cities and military facilities, followed by the United States’ use of 14 bunker-buster bombs on nuclear sites, exposed the yawning gap between Tehran’s fiery ideological rhetoric and the stark limitations of a regime that no longer controls its skies and can barely maintain order on its streets.
When Khamenei, at 86, emerged hoarse and frail to proclaim “victory,” the gesture was meant to project defiance but instead revealed the regime’s exhaustion and weakness. Sadjadpour concludes with a sobering question: “In this autumn of the leader, will the theocratic regime persist, transform, or collapse?” His essay deserves close attention, as it lays out a range of scenarios for Iran’s future transformation—one that now seems to be unfolding at an accelerating pace.
The collapse of Iran’s regional strategy over the past two years marks a turning point from which recovery appears exceedingly difficult. When combined with the regime’s mounting domestic crises—economic stagnation, social discontent, political repression, and cultural alienation, particularly among the country’s restless youth—it becomes clear that the post-Khamenei era will signify not merely a change in leadership, but a profound rupture with the past 40 years of Iran’s revolutionary history.
Ali Hamada (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)